The 25 Days of Christmas Tags

So am I the only one editing her tag photo an hour before the linkup closes??  Probably not...  I really wanted to play along, since I've enjoyed the wonderful month of inspiration put on by Tracey McNeely in her 25 Days of Christmas Tags event.  I am a huge High Hopes fan, and they were the sponsor for Day 26!  I was totally inspired by two of the designers who did penguin tags, and I knew that I had this cute little penguin and tree from High Hopes newest release.  Here is Happy Penguin & Simple Winter Tree:

The sentiment is also from High Hopes Rubber Stamps, and I used some old Close To My Heart paper (Believe) for the sky, and Merry & Bright from Carta Bella for the tree.  I coloured him up with my Copic markers.

A Simple Birthday Card

A few weeks ago, my brother-in-law asked if I would make a selection of cards that he could give to my nephew as a gift!  As an incredibly busy, fourth year Med student, the last thing he has time for is running out to buy a card, yet like all of us, he needs birthday cards, Mother's Day cards, girlfriend cards and a lot of thank you's.  So here is one of the cards that I've made for his stash:

I used my Misti, and six different Close To My Heart inks - and stamped four of these while I was at it.  I was trying to keep it gender neutral, and a card that someone in their 20's wouldn't mind giving.  I'll post the rest as I get them photographed.

Welcome Little One

I have another Mini Try-fold card using Welcome Little One from Art Impressions today.  I usually stamp two of everything when I'm cardmaking, so I coloured this one up differently from the one I made for my Great Nephew:

 I used my favourite Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid papers for the base, and coloured the images with Copic markers.

 The little stars are from two of the Ai Mini shaker sets.  I used some watercolour-look solid yellow paper to line the backside of my colouring panels, to hide the bleed through from the markers.

 A little organdy ribbon ties it all up nicely:

I'm a Great Aunt

I was pretty thrilled to wake up to a text a few weeks ago, saying that I was a Great Aunt - my niece and her husband had a baby boy :o)  The first of the next generation in my family!  So of course I whipped in to my craft room and started on a baby card using Art Impressions Welcome Little One MTF (Sku #4852):

 Mini Try-folds come with stamps for all three layers (and this one included both a boy and a girl for the inside):

 Also included are the dies to make the windows that allow you to see through all the layers.

 The sentiment in the set is "Welcome Little One" - I wanted more room to write, so left mine blank.  So fun to make baby cards when it's for family!

Art Impressions at Michaels

There are four new holiday Ai sets available right now in Michaels stores... and the Design Team are all sharing projects today.  I am featuring SC0799 or the "Ugly Sweater Gal" as I like to call her:

 I coloured her up with my Copic markers... and decided that she deserved a little shimmer, so I added my gold Wink of Stella pen to all of the jingle bells and the star.  I used some metallic gold thread to zigzag a little decoration on my card as well.  There are a bunch of cute holiday sentiments included in the set, and I chose "Don we now our Ugly Sweaters!" which I adhered with pop dots.

Happy stamping!

Copics used: Skin/hair: E11, E00, E000, E44, E43

Blues: B97, B95, B93, B91

Greens: G46, G43, G41, G21

Reds: E37, E35, E32, E30

Browns: E44, E43, E41, E40

Golds: Y26, Y23, E50

Sparkle & Cheer

 I really love this sweet snowman set from the newly released Ai Christmas clear sets - here are three cards made with Sparkle & Cheer (Sku #4935):

The snowmen in this set are just darling - and quick to colour!  You'll have a stack of Christmas cards ready to go in no time.

I used some festive plaid papers and added a little bit of lime green to make things pop.  I also used lime green thread in my sewing machine to zigzag on each card.

Happy stamping!

LinkDeli.com

Tag It!

The current challenge on the Art Impressions blog is "Tag It!"  We want to see your tags - Christmas or otherwise... I am sharing "otherwise" today :o)  The Ai DT is helping to launch the Ai clear Christmas & Thanksgiving sets today - and I am featuring Full of Thanks set (Sku #4939):

 I pulled out my favourite Perfectly Plaid Fall papers from Lawn Fawn... and coloured up three of the images from this cute set (oh, that turkey!!).  There are fabulous sentiments included as well, so I picked three:

 You'll want to see what the rest of the Design Team is sharing today on the blog, and you can get a peek at the newest Ai Christmas stamps - now available in the Art Impressions store.  You can link up your own tags while you're there.  Happy stamping!

Girlfriends Christmas Card

 Don't you just love it when a new Ai Girlfriends stamp comes out??  I do - and this is such a fun one for the holidays.  Here is GF Christmas Set (Sku #4938):

 I adore all things plaid, especially for Christmas - so I used this sweet Lawn Fawn paper as my starting point by pulling out the green & teal colours, then picked a few other warm tones to finish colouring the image with Copic markers.  I kept the layout fairly simple by just using a circle die for the image, matting it, then adding a popped up sentiment and a few enamel dots to jazz it up.  Happy stamping!
Copics used: E11, E00, E000, E34, E31, E53, E51, E50, R37, R35, R32, R30, BG18, BG15, BG11, YG05, YG03, YG01, YG00, Y26, Y23, C5, C3, C1, C00

LinkDeli.com

Holiday Watercolour Cards

 I have several different cards to share today using a variety of the Art Impressions Watercolor stamp sets.  I was so excited when the WC Fir Trees Set (Sku #4960) debuted in the summer, and was very keen to try using it for Christmas greenery. I really love the results! 

 I started out with my watercolour paper and Marvy markers, and used the No. 4 paintbrush that is available in the Ai store.  For the urn, I used WC Ornate Container Set (Sku #4890) and my Brownish Grey Marvy marker.  I intentionally didn't colour the top edge of the container, as I knew that I wanted the foliage to be spilling over the edge.  Using my Jungle Green Marvy marker, I inked up four of the branch stamps, stamping the lower branches first, and filling in upwards.  I left a space in the center, and inked up one of the branches from WC Branches Set (Sku #4964) with my English Red Marvy marker (these are Red Dogwood branches!!).  I then used the brush end of my Marvy marker to hand draw in the pinecones by using a dabbing motion in a pinecone shape.  I used the fine end of the marker to add some shadows to the twigs:

 I used just two stamps from the set to make my wreath, and you can either draw a faint circle with a pencil to use as a guide, or do what I did, and stamp a branch on the top, bottom and on each side - forming a square shape.  Then continue stamping in between, shaping it into a circle.  I occasionally double stamped without re-inking, which gives a bit of depth to the wreath, by having some lighter toned sprigs.  I didn't fill in every white area, as that left me with spots to add in berries that I drew in directly with my red marker.  I also hand drew the bow in before there were too many sprigs around it.  I use a very light touch with my damp paintbrush, as I like to see some of the definition of the pine needles.

I was so happy with how these turned out, that I've made multiples to send as my Christmas cards.